On World Maritime Day we are thrilled to announce the winners of this year’s ITF Seafarers’ Trust Life at Sea photography competition. Once again, we had a spectacular response from seafarers, with just short of 2,000 submissions and a notable increase in overall quality giving the judges a serious challenge.
Since its inception in 2020 this project has been bringing the unique perspective of seafarers to a wider audience through exhibitions and presentations around the world. Right now, previous winning photos from the Life at Sea project are on display at the Maritime Museum Rotterdam, venue of the biannual International Congress of Maritime Museums. We were delighted to include on our panel of judges curators Irene Jacobs from the Maritime Museum Rotterdam, and Sara Keijzer from the National Maritime Museum Amsterdam, alongside The Guardian’s Joe Plimmer and last year’s winner, Robert Maraño.
With this year’s theme for World Maritime Day – ‘Navigating the future: safety first!’, it is a fitting coincidence that the winning image highlights one of the most important maritime safety issues: fatigue.
The first prize of £1,000 goes to Jericho P. Mifania for his photo ‘Echoing Sigh-lence of Relief inside Cargo Hold’– in his own words ‘a tableau of weary resilience after an arduous hours working. The sea may seem majestically infinite, but our sights are often confined to these walls, resolutely enduring the relentless waves of fatigue, the gnawing loneliness, and the constant pressure to deliver. It is in moments like this that we realize we are bound together by a shared sigh of relief echoing the unspoken battles we keep.’
Competition judge Sara Keijzer said, “In this photo you really see the fatigue of the seafarer. It is not posed; he is really resting after a hard day’s work. They are working in the dark with his flashlight being nearly blinded by the light.” In the words of judge Robert Marano, “It was a very genuine photo. The more I look to it, the more I am immersed into it. The composition of the photo was great and the light hitting their faces really highlights their emotion.”
By contrast, the second prize winner Waseem Abbas was awarded for his stunning photo ‘Ships in Clouds’, an almost optical illusion of ‘flying ships’, according to Irene Jacobs, “a beautiful photo, and one you can only see when you are a seafarer.”
The third prize, awarded to Kenji F. Rabie for ‘Blasting Bows: Shipyard Renewal in Action’ takes the viewer to the drydock where the bows of two vessels are blasted clean. This image impressed all judges with its abstract aesthetic, Joe Plimmer, a professional photographer himself, noted "A highly accomplished image with hidden depths and a unique perspective.”
Life at Sea 2024 is the fifth seafarers’ photography competition organised by the ITF Seafarers Trust and, in celebration of the fifth anniversary of the competition, this year the judges recognised five further photographs as highly commended: ‘Life of a seafarer behind the scenes‘ by Mark Joseph Bureros, ‘Barbershop onboard’ by Dwi Kartini, ‘A three man job’ by Jairus Jan Ricafranca, ‘The dream is within reach’ by John Prieto and ‘Embracing the beauty of our ship, from a different perspective’ by Malcom Resolme Serrano.
The ITF Seafarers’ Trust photography project, which began in 2020 at the height of the Covid- 19 pandemic, now boasts a collection of some 10,000 digital images and captions. We are enormously grateful to all the seafarers who have embraced the opportunity to share their experiences with us and help raise the profile of the men and women powering the global movement of goods and people by sea.
About the judges:
John Robert Maraño is a seafarer from the Philippines, currently working at sea on international vessels as a third engineer. A keen photographer in his free time, his photograph “12 Degrees” won first prize in the Life at Sea 2023 ITF Seafarers’ Trust photo competition.
Irene B. Jacobs is a senior curator at the Maritime Museum Rotterdam, where she is responsible for the art collection (like paintings, prints and drawings) as well as the photographical collection. She is a historian from Leiden University, specialised in Dutch maritime history. Currently she is working on research into maritime women, including seafaring women, which will lead to an exhibition from March 2025.
Joe Plimmer is a freelance picture editor currently working for The Guardian series, Seascape, which draws attention to the dramatic changes taking place in our oceans and looks at ways to tackle them. Joe's role is to source and commission compelling visual content from across the globe. Recent highlights have included monks clearing plastic waste from Bangkok waterways and brave turtle guardians in Sri Lanka. Bigger projects for Seascape include series such as The Rising Ocean and The Great British Seaside. As a photographer himself, Joe understands the importance of high impact photography.
Sara Keijzer (MA) is curator of photography and film at the National Maritime Museum in Amsterdam. She curated numerous exhibitions related to maritime history, such as the extensive photography exhibition Humans at sea (2022-2023) and has published on a wide range of maritime subjects. She also works as an editor for Fotografisch geheugen, a journal covering photography in Dutch museums and archives.